A Game of Risk
by Kore Anesidora
Summary: Emma and Henry teach Regina how to play Risk. A fluffy one-shot dedicated to AMC6686.


**A fluffy one-shot, dedicated to AMC6686 for winning a quiz in my story "A Choice Denied."**

**Enjoy! :)**

**Disclaimer: OUaT is not mine**

* * *

"Regina, you coming?"

"Just a moment!" she called back, placing the last finishing touches on the roast before setting it inside the pre-heated oven. Closing the oven door with a soft clang, she unwound the spotless white apron from around her waist and hung it from a hook on the wall. She ran her hands quickly through her hair as she strode into the living room. There, Emma and Henry had set up a board of some sort upon the coffee table. It depicted a map of the world, each continent a different glaring colour.

"Alright," Regina sat next to Emma on the couch, while Henry knelt on the floor opposite them, "What are we playing?"

"Risk," Henry replied, rattling a set of dice in his hand with a menacing smile.

"And here I was hoping for a game I knew, like chess," Regina murmured.

Emma scooted closer and wrapped her arms comfortably around Regina, "Then it wouldn't be fair, would it? You'd just win."

"Who says I won't win in this game too? Hmm? I seem to remember excelling in games of _risk_," Regina's voice lowered to a playful purr that made a smirk pull at Emma's mouth, mischief flashing in those glass-green eyes along with something else.

"Ew. Can't you guys do that somewhere else?" Henry wrinkled his nose at their display of affection.

Emma, however, was not to be deterred, "Why?" she taunted lightly, "You afraid of getting cooties?"

"Don't be ridiculous," he scoffed, looking like Regina when crossed his arms and glowered, "Cooties don't exist!"

Emma lowered her voice dramatically, "That's what you think…"

At the look of doubt and fear on his face, Regina had to bite back a smile, "Well, then!" she brought her hands together with purpose and leaned forward, "Educate me. What is the objective of this game?"

Henry suddenly brightened and reached down to bring up plastic tubs full of little soldiers and cavalrymen and cannons, "It's all about world domination."

At this, a dark brow arched and Regina turned to Emma, "And you expect to _beat me_ at this game?"

Emma shrugged in return, but she was grinning nonetheless, "First time players almost always lose."

Henry pulled out a small booklet from the box and began reading through the rules. Halfway through, though, Regina halted hi, "This can't be right," she scowled in confusion, "The game clearly favours the attacker!"  
"You haven't even played yet and you want to change the rules?" Emma asked, incredulous.

"The rules are obviously flawed," Regina insisted, her chin tilted up haughtily, "I propose that, should the attacker fail to capture a territory, the defender receives a card."

"You're not changing the game, sly wench that you are. I'm onto you!" Emma insisted, waggling a finger near Regina's nose.

Regina snapped her teeth at the offending digit, missing it on purpose, "It's for your benefit as well as mind, dear. If you don't believe me, then by all means let's play the game as it is. You'll wish you'd followed my advice."

Leaning in close, Emma whispered, her gaze sparkling, "Challenge accepted."

Regina turned to Henry, who was looking determined, already clutching the plastic box of yellow soldiers to his chest, "Ready, Henry?"

He nodded, enthusiastic, tearing the lid from the box and arranging his troops in neat little rows on his side of the table. Regina picked up the tub of red soldiers, "Then let the games begin."

* * *

Emma frowned down at the board, chin rested on her fists. The map was a sea of red soldiers with only a small island of blue in Australia and Papua New Guinea. Henry had be ousted thirty minutes into the game, but had contented himself with constructing a sort of paradise for his men, their bodies held as prisoners of war on Regina's end of the table. They were lined up around a plastic lid and he kept regaling Regina and Emma with tales of his warriors' valiant efforts in battle that resulted in their ascendancy to Valhalla, where mead flowed rich and fecund as mountain streams, and the lusty Valkyries tended to the glorious fallen.

At one point Emma had laughed at his antics and remarked, "Kid, you've been reading too much _Beowulf_."

But Henry had leapt to his feet and brandished a tub of soldiers at her like a sword, "One can never read too much of the Danish King, Hero of the Geats!"

And Regina had watched him with eyes soft as grass, a warm smile on her lips.

It was nothing at all like the smile she wore now.

Emma's scowl deepened when she caught Regina's eye, noting the victorious edge to her smile, a smile thin, bladed, predatory. That black gaze was hooded and calculating, watching Emma instead of the board. She had been swift and brutal in her attacks, relentless. Grumbling under her breath, Emma fixed her attention back on the board. She stalled even though she knew she was doomed. Regina owned so many territories, she had had to start using the black soldiers as well in order to fill her ranks when she cashed in her seemingly endless supply of cards for more troops.

Just then, a buzzer from the kitchen sounded, ringing angrily. Regina rose to her feet, "I have to check on the roast. Don't change anything while I'm gone or I'll know." She waggled a finger at Emma, whose mouth turned down at the parodied action mirrored after her own playful admonishment less than two hours ago.

As soon as Regina had disappeared into the kitchen, Emma sighed, lowering her face into her hands and groaning in defeat.

"Hey, Emma," Henry began brightly, "Wanna have your troops join mind?" He gestured proudly to his miniature Valhalla.

She smiled, "Why the hell not?"

As they initiated Emma's sterling dead armies into their heavenly seats, Emma asked, "Is there anything your mother _isn't _good at?"

"Hmm…" Henry thought for a moment, tapping together two plastic cavalrymen, "Cards," he finally decided, "She's great at bluffing, but even she can't out-bluff the randomosity of cards."

Emma grinned broadly at him, then placed a tiny infantryman atop a great pyramid of canons he had erected on the table, "Then next time we're playing five card stud."

* * *

**By the way, I actually do all of these things while playing Risk. I make a little Valhalla for my fallen soldiers. And I do, in fact, think that Risk favours the attacker too much. I've been wanting to mod it for ages the way Regina describes. I mean, just consider it for a moment: you'd think twice about attacking an enemy territory if your failure to capture it meant your opponent would get a card. **

**Also, if anyone thinks Henry wouldn't be reading _Beowulf_ or acting like this, then...Well...I may or may not have been like that when I was 10. I DENY EVERYTHING .**

**-Kore**


End file.
